


Season of the Ghost

by maleficentbastard



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banshee Lydia Martin, Ghost Laura Hale, Humor, Magical Stiles Stilinski, My First Fanfic, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6101146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maleficentbastard/pseuds/maleficentbastard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate take on Lydia's banshee powers. Laura Hale has died at the claws of her uncle and is now a ghost. The only one who can see her is the banshee who's scream called to Laura upon her death. But really all that means is Lydia Martin is not going to have a very good day.</p>
<p>My first fanfic, but I've had this idea stewing around my head for a bit and needed to get it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Season of the Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Read through this a couple time for spelling and readability but no beta so let me know if anything doesn't make sense or is awkward ;P

Laura had never truly seen herself before. Sure she’d seen pictures of herself and her reflection in a mirror or the glass fronts of buildings in New York, but never without those degrees of separation that other people don't have when viewing another person. 

So it was a decidedly strange experience for her to be looking down at herself lying vacant eyed on the forest floor with the insane remnants of the person who she used to call her uncle working on ripping out her heart. It didn’t help that there was an insistent shrill noise that seemed to have lodged itself into the base of her skull that was become more annoying with each passing second of watching the gruesome scene.

Laura sighed from her position floating a few feet above her own body. This was not how she had expected her day to go. She had been investigating the strange animal killings that had brought her back to Beacon Hills in the first place and hadn’t even thought to visit her supposedly comatose uncle yet when he and his nurse decided to visit her. Which was why she was now dead and could do nothing as her newly Alpha-fied shithead of an uncle tore into her chest.

The annoying noise she was hearing grew to a crystal clear scream that made Laura’s eardrums throb like a kick-drum mallet was crashing through them. The sound was surrounding her and beating at her senses until she could no long even see the woods around her.

“What the hell?” she croaked out. It felt like the sound was pulling at her core and shutting down her mind. The was nothing she could do as the world around her disappeared and she found herself somewhere else entirely.

 

...

 

Lydia Martin had never really enjoyed sleepovers. She was always far too worried what people would think if she accidentally dosed off and woke them all with ear piercing screams. Even nowadays when she slept over at Jackson’s she didn’t stay bed with him after he passed out from whatever sort of activities they'd been doing. She’d wait until she could hear his breath even out, stroke her thumb lightly down his jawline, and slip out of bed. The Whittemore’s had Netflix, Hulu, and all the premium cable packages and she could watch them on Jackson’s computer. And when she wasn’t catching up on Pretty Little Liars or Dexter, she would read academic the journals that Mr. Whittemore was subscribed so he could do research for court cases. 

Lydia of course knew that sleep deprivation was not truly conducive to retaining all the information she came across, but remembering all the stuff she read did not matter as much as to her as not being known as someone who screams herself awake at night. 

It wasn’t as though she woke up screaming in the middle of the night every night. She just couldn’t predict when it was going to happen. Like tonight, her parents were away and she was home alone so she figured she might sleep soundly without having to worry about her mother hearing her scream and deciding to send her to another psychologist to get another bottle of pills. 

But naturally on a night where she didn’t have to worry about wether or not she will scream, Lydia woke up to the loudest, most piercing sound she had ever produced. The sound was being pulled out of her, her throat strained to capacity and light headed from lack of oxygen to the brain. But she couldn’t stop. All she could do was lie stiff in her bed with tears running down her cheeks and hope that the whole neighborhood didn’t hear the scream. 

On the verge of blacking out and muscles so tense she could swear her bones were about to crack, Lydia felt the scream begin to taper off. The sound coming from her throat reduced to a low whining as she felt her body relax and go limp. She felt more exhausted than she could ever remember feeling as the scream finally ended and the only sound left in her room was her harsh intakes of breath as she tried to regain some sense of equilibrium. 

Lydia wiped at her damp face with her arm and with she her hand in front of her she could see in the dim light that her hand was shaking. Her entire body felt like it was quivering with tiny convulsions just under the skin. She felt cold all the way to her bones and damp from sweat.

Sliding out of bed with a vague thought of finding new sheets Lydia found she could hardly stand. Her legs felt like jelly and she almost fell right back into bed. So much for getting new sheets. Instead she went over to her dresser and grabbed the bottle of Ambien from the top drawer. She struggled for a moment twisting it open before she was able to pop the cap off. She paused, about to tip a couple pills out of the bottle. Lydia was so tired and the drugs would defiantly make her sleep, but the hallucinogenic side effect always left her wrung out and paranoid.

She looked up at the vanity above the dresser, hoping to gauge just how much coverup she’d have to used under her eyes tomorrow if she went out. There was a clack and a skittering noise as the bottle dropped from her hand and the pills scattered across the hardwood. There was another person in Lydia’s room, right behind her.

 

...

 

Two Days Later

 

Seven AM was an ungodly hour to be waking up, especially on a Monday, especially just to go to high school. It probably didn’t help that Stiles had slept little all weekend, not looking forward to the second half of sophomore and vainly hoping for something epic to happen before he had to go to school five days a week again. He’d even listened in on his dad’s calls in the hopes that somebody would be letting the Sheriff know about a car chase or a dead body or something. But other than some jogger reporting some signs of a disturbance on the preserve, his dad hadn’t gotten any calls from the department while he was home. So Stiles’ last weekend of the holiday break had been boring, uneventful and more than a little bit sleep deprived. 

Which was probably why it took him an entire 30 minutes to realize something was up with Lydia. 

From years of careful attention to detail, from the soft curl of her strawberry blonde hair to the exact shade of her favorite lipstick, Stiles knew how prudent Lydia Martin was about public appearance. Today though she had her hair, which may or may not have been brushed recently, in a sloppy bun on top of her head, her outfit did not match and her eyes were bloodshot and tense, flicking from the teacher at the front of the room to the corner where the door was. She somehow managed to look even more tired than Stiles himself felt. So either she had radically changed her approach to high school politics half way through sophomore year or something was terribly, terribly wrong. 

When the bell for the end of first period finally rang Lydia scurried out of the room without making eye contact with anyone. Stiles had never seen her scurry before and his concern doubled. He quickly shoved his things in his bag while trying to work up the courage to go after her and ask if she was okay, when a hand grabbed his arm.

“Did you see the new girl? Wasn’t she beautiful?” Scott, Stiles’ best and realistically only friend, said, moony eyed with his young, blossoming love.

Stiles, more experienced with his 5 year love affair with the idea of Lydia Martin, asked sagely, “Did you talk to her?”

Scott sobered up a little, “No, but I think she needed a pencil.”

“Did you give her a pencil then? That sounds like the perfect opportunity to display your ability to provide for and support her!” Stiles said, realizing that he could be missing out at the same opportunity with Lydia if he didn’t go after her now.

Scott was looking decidedly downtrodden at this point, “No, what if she didn’t actually need one, what if she's just too cool to take notes or something.”

“Next time then, dude. But now I’ve gotta go,” Stiles said pointing behind him and walking backwards towards the door. Scott looked vaguely confused since Stiles didn’t generally have anywhere he needed to be urgently, but also because he always looked vaguely confused while at school, so Stiles turned his back on him and dashed out the door.

Right into the very solid and very angry Jackson Whittemore. 

“Watch it, Stilinski,” Jackson said shoving Stiles away from him.

“A pleasure as always, Whinemore. Danny,” Stiles said, greeting the taller quiet boy behind the scowling Jackson as well.

“See you on the field,” Jackson said, in a tone probably meant to be a threat but Stiles was going to interpret as a heartwarming invitation, as he pushed Stiles again on his way down the hallway. Danny just shrugged and followed after him.

At this point Stiles hopes of finding Lydia and asking her what was wrong before the next bell were slim to none. Sure he knew she was probably on her way to her English class, but Stiles had to be in AP World on the opposite side of the school in under a minute. Running his hand down his front absently to smooth down his shirt Stiles decided he’d wait until last period when they both had the same Chemistry class to see how Lydia was doing.

 

....

 

Lydia was not doing well. She was having a terrible day, a worse week and if she was being honest with herself the month wasn’t looking too promising either. 

After leaving third period to allegedly go to the bathroom, Lydia headed to her locker. Shrugging her nearly empty book bag higher onto her shoulder she wondered what she had even done all day. After somehow making it to school, the first half of the day back for the semester was a blur. She was pretty sure she was wearing some concealer because nobody had commented on the bags under her eyes, but hadn’t trusted the steadiness of her hands with much else. Raising her hand she watched as the fingers trembled. School might not have been the best idea.

“What’s the hold up?” a voice behind her said tersely. 

Lydia pursed her lips as she turned to face the reason for her misfortunes. 

Standing in the middle of the hall tall, dark and irritated was Laura Hale. The twenty-somethings presence in the high school might be surprising to others, but for Lydia it had been far more surprising when the woman had appeared behind he in her bedroom the other night.

“School was an idiotic idea,” Laura stated staring down the deserted hallway. “We should have just skipped and went back to move my body again.”

The other surprising thing about Laura Hales presence was that she was dead. Lydia had seen the evidence quite clearly when Laura had coerced her to move her gored body deeper into the woods in the early hours of Saturday morning. Lydia wasn’t sure if it was the image of Laura’s insides flashing behind her eyes every time she closed them or Laura herself as a constant ghostly presence that had contributed more to her lack of sleep. Because Laura Hale was now a ghost that apparently only Lydia could see and hear and for some reason Laura would not leave her alone.

The living impaired individual claimed this was all because when she had died Lydia’s scream had called to her spirit. Lydia didn’t know whether it was better to deny the possibility of her affinity with the dead and apparent ‘banshee’ status or just wallow in irritated acceptance, but at the moment she was done with school. 

Turning to face her locker again and grabbing a few books she placed them in her bag in case she got the opportunity to do some schoolwork later. Carefully closing the locker and securing the lock Lydia took a deep breath in an effort to clear her head.

“Come on, lets go move your disgusting body again.”

 

...

 

Scott was determined to make the second semester of his sophomore year in high school a great one. Since he and Stiles had premiered as the un-dynamic duo of the Beacon Highs lacrosse team their freshman year, Scott had determined that he wanted to be better. After working on his cardio and lung stamina all summer, which had only left him wheezing desperately enough to warrant his moms scary raised eyebrows a few times, Scott had worked on strength training all fall. He even had abs now if he flexed his stomach in a certain way. Stiles had made fun of him for flexing so much when Scott first showed him his new and improved stomach but Scott was pretty sure he was just hiding jealousy or something. It wasn’t his fault Stiles hadn’t deigned to join him in his workout regime, claiming he was just going to waiting until he grew into his body. Scott was fairly sure Stiles just couldn’t commit to an abstract and distant goal like physical fitness. 

Scott though, Scott was all about goals. Get better at lacrosse. Get better grades. Make sure his mom was happy. Convince his mom to let him buy a motorbike. Save enough money for said theoretical motorbike. Scott had a mental list of all his goals, with another goal being to remember all his goals. The only problem with Scott having so many goals was that it sometimes became hard to focus on one and get it done. And it became hard to even remember all his old goals when he got a bright shiny new goal. Like the new goal he’d decided on just this morning. Get a girlfriend. And this came with a specific girl in mind, one who had in fact spurred on his decision for the new goal. Allison <3\. The new girl from first period. She had delicate dark curls and a face full of kindness and curiosity for the world. Or at least that was what Scott had seen in the mere moments he had looked right at her before she took her seat and his heart. 

It would probably be best now that he had a new goal to work out his steps towards asking Allison out and getting her to agree to a date. Setting out steps had helped him get to goals in the past. He and Stiles had looked up some fitness regimes that would improve his lung stamina and core strength and then he had set a pace for himself to work through the exercises. For the motorbike he had gone around town applying for jobs until Mrs.Green at the corner store had told him the vet, Dr. Deaton, might be willing to hire on some help. Getting hired as a part-time vet assistant also counted as working towards one of his ultimate goals, going to college and getting a career working with animals. And the added responsibility seemed to generally make his mom happier, which also might be helping in convincing her to let him buy a motorbike. And even though he might be slightly delusional on that last point, Scott couldn’t help but think that his methods of working towards his goals might have his life coming together after all.

So really there was no reason for him to think the same thing wouldn’t work for asking Allison out. He just needed to come up with a plan of action. The first thing to do was probably get her attention. If his efforts towards improving in lacrosse had succeeded he might be all set with that. Or he could try smiling at her if she ever happened to be looking at him. Both Stiles and his mother had told him it was his best feature. He could wow Allison with his new lacrosse skills and then when she was looking at him after a goal or something he would give her a smile that was just for her. Then after she had noticed what a friendly and skilled person he was he would talk to her and eventually ask her out!

Scott grinned to himself, liking his new strategy, unfortunately, the planning of which was interfering with one of his other goals. Getting good grades. Pulling himself out of his own head Scott turned back to where Miss Scofield was trying to teach him Geometry. But not before he caught sight of something dashing across the schools back parking lot towards the woods. Whipping his head back to look out the windows again Scott frowned, trying to discern who could be running away from the school in the middle of the day. 

After a moment of watching the flailing gait Scott sighed and then frowned again in confusion. He hoped whatever Stiles was doing he would be back before the end of lacrosse practice since he’d promised Scott a ride across town to the vet clinic. 

 

...

 

Stiles liked to think he made good decisions in life. He thought of himself as a critical and creative thinker who could come up with answers to puzzles and problems and then pick the best course of action to use. Admittedly his lack of concentration on one subject matter at a time sometimes challenged this self assessment. He had recently gone on a wiki binge that had landed him in the land of male human anatomy and its various sociocultural significancies. He really didn’t want to think about how many hours he’d spent reading about the history of the penis and where the fixation had come from, but now he was worried about how much he wanted to bring it up in class in front of Finstock just to see how the man would react. But all this talk of male genitalia was more of a theoretical threat to his idea of himself as a person who made good decisions in life. More practically one could use the example of running away from school while stalking his crush in the middle of the day to make a case against his supposed ‘good decision maker’ personality trait.

Though Stiles rejected the idea that he was stalking Lydia. It was more of a concerned following. 

He had seen her pushing hurriedly out the double doors near the library while he was heading towards the bathroom. She had looked even more disheveled and harried than she had seemed first period, muttering angrily to herself as she slipped out the doors with her bag clutched to her side and headed away from school. 

Stiles had stood there dumbly for an entire minute before a thought even crossed his mind, staring at the spot where the secretly studious Lydia Martin had disappeared from the school grounds in the middle of third period. Stiles was almost entirely sure that despite the cool girl attitude and persona that Lydia had never even been late for a class, let alone skipped one. Stiles had always been willing to skip out for important things like checking blood-work before his dad tried to discreetly hide it after he had a doctors appointment or when Scott had asthma problems and needed someone to sit with him. His dad always grumbled about Stiles missing school but Stiles had long since decided some things where just more important than school. 

Which was probably why he was now following in the direction he was fairly sure Lydia gone into the woods behind the school parking lot. Stiles had wanted to be there incase she needed help, not just because he had a crush on her but because he was genuinely concerned with how different she’d seemed today and didn’t want her to get hurt. So after dashing into the bathroom for the quickest pee of his life Stiles had dashed out the same doors Lydia had exited out of about two and a half minutes after her.

After a moment of looking around for her Stiles had seen movement straight back into the woods behind the school and dashed off across the parking lot in that direction. Lydia had a head start on him but he was fairly sure she wasn’t running so he probably wouldn't lose track of her if he was quick. He had to slow when he hit the woods so he didn’t twist an ankle but he figured he’d be able to follow her at a close enough distance that he’d be there is she needed any help. 

Again not stalking. Concerned following.

Said concerned following led Stiles about 40 minutes into the woods when he decided to admit the truth about another lie he’d been telling himself. He hadn’t seen any sign of Lydia in the past five minutes. 

Stiles stopped near a big tree and looked around in confusion. He figured he’d probably followed Lydia all the way out towards the preserve but he still had no idea why she would be headed this way. Grabbing his phone out of his pocket Stiles saw he had one useless bar of service. He was probably not that far into the preserve then. Shrugging Stiles started typing out a text to Scott. It might go through if his phone was feeling benevolent and he’d feel bad if he didn’t give Scott a heads up that he might not make it to practice.

Stiles hit send on the message and then his phone dropped to the dirt when a hand grabbed his shoulder.

 

...

 

Lydia raised her brows as Stiles tensed and then jumped away from her in surprise, spinning midair and landing gracelessly on the ground with his phone.

“Lydia! I can’t say this is the first time you gotten my heart all a flutter! But holy shit I may need a lie down!”

Lydia pursed her lips at the overly dramatic ramblings of the flailing boy, “Why are you following me?” 

“Uh, following you? Me?” Stiles flapped a hand at the surrounding woodland, “I was just taking a stroll through our lovely countryside, you know like I always do during the middle a school day when I have classes.” Stiles licked his lips and smiled awkwardly up at Lydia.

“He’s kind of annoying,” Laura Hale, who yes, Lydia still had to deal with, said blandly from where she was now standing behind Stiles, “Get him out of here before he notices my body,” Laura continued before waltzing around the still the sitting Stiles to stand behind Lydia. Lydia tensed as Laura moved out of her line of sight but refrained from doing something crazy like talk back to someone that no one else could see. Still looking at Stiles she caught him shivering and glancing around suspiciously at the woods around him. Lydia was well aware of how annoying Stiles could be, but he’d always come across as harmless and almost pathetic but with undeniable loyal streak. One that Lydia was positive extended to herself. She was also positive it would be a piece of cake to get rid of him.

“Well, I can’t claim to know what you choose to do with your life,” Lydia said with a smile that contradicted her condescending words, “But I really just needed to get away from everyone at school today.”

“Oh yeah I understand, me too!” Stiles smiled up at her.

Lydia blinked down at him with an even smaller smile than she’d had a moment ago, “And I was just really hoping I would have some _alone_ time out here without running into anyone,” Lydia blinked again while staring down at him, hoping it came across as more deliberate.

“The preserve does seem like a good place for that!” Stiles observed from his seat on the ground, “I haven’t seen anyone but you and ... oh! Right! Me! I’m probably getting in the way of all your alone time!” Lydia smiled and nodded as he looked up to her for conformation. “But are you sure you’ll be alright out here? It’s a little, ah, spooky, ya know?” he bit his lip and glanced at the trees behind him.

Laura snorted from behind Lydia and Stiles twitched as though in reaction to the sound. Lydia wondered if maybe normal people had some sensitivity to ghosts beyond her own supernatural awareness. She was almost curious enough to want to study the phenomenon but really the urge to get rid Laura and get her life back to normal was far greater.

“I assure you, Stiles,” Lydia reached out a hand, hoping to get him off the ground and out of the area as soon as possible, “I can take care of myself.”

Stiles eyes widened comically at her proffered hand, then he smiled up at her, “I know that Lydia,” he said as he grabbed her hand and used it to help pull himself up, “you’re one of the most...”

As Stiles stood in front of Lydia his hand tightened on hers and his eyes grew wide in fear, his gaze locked somewhere behind her.

Suddenly he pulled Lydia towards him while stepping so that he was between her and whatever he had seen. Lydia stumbled slightly at the sudden movement before steadying herself a few feet behind Stiles and looking back at whatever had startled him.

Laura stood there with her arms crossed and her brows raised curiously at the teen boy who was now looking frantically around the woods.

“Lydia!” Stiles exclaimed taking a peek back at her and flailing his arms around, “There’s a woman here!” He whipped back around, scanning the woods and completely missing Laura’s presence not five feet in front of him, “But she disappeared!” 

Laura regarded Stiles considerately, “I think he saw me,” she said simply. Stiles stiffened and looked around again.

Lydia, having had very little sleep over the weekend and a poor kickoff to the new school semester in general, had very little patience left when she sarcastically blurted out, “Really?!”

Stiles stepped away from her outburst, licking his lips nervously, “I swear I’m not lying! There was a woman standing there! She’s just, uh, gone now?” He racked a hand through his buzzed hair and glanced around the woods again.

Lydia groaned, wondering how her day had managed to get even worse, though considering the already exponential downward slope her life had taken she should have really expected it. “Come this way,” Lydia snapped as she started walking towards a patch of thick brush.

Stiles frowned but followed after her as he always did, not without comment of course, “Are we hiding? Should we try to find out where that lady went?”

Lydia, as she had much practice at it, ignored him, choosing instead to listen to Laura.

“Hey! What are you doing banshee?! Don’t show him that!” Laura moved in a flash to stand in front of Lydia, settling into a crouched position in front of the girl and baring her teeth, but Lydia just charged straight through her, shivering as she pasted through Laura’s incorporeal form.

Laura growled from behind her, “Hey stop! I didn’t say you could sh-OUFF!” Lydia heard a thud of someone hitting the ground.

“Ahh! What was that?!” Stiles exclaimed a moment after the thud.

Lydia spun to figure out what nonsense was going on behind her. Stiles was on the ground again and Laura was looking down at him with a shocked expression.

Laura looked back at Lydia and pointed at Stiles, “He ran into me.”

“I think we should get out of the woods! Something weird is going on here Lydia!” Stiles scrabbled to his feet and rushed over to Lydia’s side, Laura hopping out of his way.

Lydia was done. The day wasn’t even halfway over and she was already done enough to fill the entirety of the new year with not giving a fuck. So in absence of caring about the consequences of her actions Lydia pulled aside the bush she was standing beside.

“Is this what the woman you saw looked like?”

 

...

 

Starting at new schools was always hard, but Allison Argent liked to think she’d gotten better at it simply from experience. Beacon Hills High School appeared to be your typical high school with your typical cliques. Allison had hoped to conquer all this with her typical entry plan. Dress her best, smile and try, but not try too hard, in class. It was always better to not appear too above or below average. Better to find out what others are looking for in a new friend or peer before giving too much away. Unfortunately Allison had not packed any form of writing utensil and therefore failed to even appear to even be trying at school. Her backups of dressing fashionably and smiling politely didn’t seem to be working either since no one had approached her or used the excuse of her nice clothes as an easy icebreaker.

Allison sighed into her new locker as she put her books she’d collected from the first half of the day away and headed for the lunchroom. In theory she could be the one to strike up a conversation, but she always found it easier to let someone take the lead so she could she where she stood before committing herself. She was also loath to admit it but she was a bit shy. One would think constantly starting at new schools might have cured her of this but in all likelihood it had made her shyer.

Allison bit her lip when she was finally able to find the lunchroom. Scoping out the place she saw a nearly empty table in the corner that just had a boy and a girl sitting across from each other at one end. Moving through the lunch line Allison kept the table in the corner of her eye. 

The two sitting there didn’t seem to be talking to each other but seemed comfortable enough with the silence anyway. The boy was skinny and tall looking with a curly mop of lightly colored hair hanging around his head like a halo. Allison could not see the girl’s face from her position in line but she could see that the other girl had blond hair and was wearing a frumpy oversized shirt. Allison figured the two were definitely not with the popular crowd and sitting at the their table might not be the best move while trying to figure out how to navigate her new school, but she wasn’t sure there was really any other option. Swiping her student card Allison gathered up her tray and headed for the open seats at the other end of nearly empty table.

 

...

 

“I-is that a body?!” Stiles asked in a choked off voice, inching backwards away from where Lydia was standing and putting on display what was clearly a dead body.

“No idiot its clearly a well made mannequin I decided to drag into the woods and then show you. Yes, its a body!”

Stiles didn’t really know what to do or how to process this information. Lydia, who could do no wrong, clearly knew exactly where a very dead body was hidden in the woods and unless he had somehow missed his dad being more busy than usual, she hadn’t reported it to the police.

“Uh, how’d that get there?” Stiles asked still staring down at the feet of the dead body. The lady corpse didn’t have any shoes on and Stiles could not come up with a reason why. Not that he was trying to figure out more innocuous puzzles in light of the greater and more sinister shenanigans that seemed to be going on. Again, he always tried to be honest with himself.

“I dragged it here and hide it,” Stiles finally looked at Lydia now while at the same time reaching for his phone that was supposed to be in his back pocket. It wasn’t, it was still on the ground a few yards away from when he’d dropped it earlier. And Lydia didn’t seem to even be paying attention to him anymore, pursing her lips and scowling off slightly to his right. Stiles shivered as he heard the creepy whispers skitter through the woods again. This place was super creepy and crazy murder Lydia wasn’t helping.

“So Lydia, I’m just remembering what you said earlier about wanting to be alone right now and I’m definitely feeling that I should go and leave you to that,” Stiles said walking backwards toward his phone, “So I’ll just be off then...”

Lydia turned to look at him and scowled at his inching steps backward before turning to look into the woods over his shoulder again, “So can you stop him then?” she asked in a condescending tone.

Stiles decided it was definitely time to go now and turned to run to his phone only to hit the really solid invisible brick wall he’d run into earlier again. But this time he also felt hands grip his biceps and heard the whispery voices louder like they were talking from the bottom of a well at a volume where he still couldn’t make out the words. Stiles struggled, trying desperately to pull away from the invisible hold, but the grip was vise like and unbreakable. Stiles sagged suddenly hoping to drag whatever his captor was to the ground and escape then, but the hands just held up his dead weight easily. Stiles gulped.

“Interesting,” Lydia said behind him, the echoey voice said something and then Lydia spoke again, “Well you should know better then me, shouldn’t you? Bring him over here.”

“I don’t know what going on, but could you ask your creepy invisible friend to let me go please and thank you!” Stiles said in a rush as the hands pushed him towards Lydia and the body and a moment later spun him to face Lydia and grabbed the back of his neck so he couldn’t run away.

“In a second,” Lydia said pulling back the bush hiding the body again, “Now at this point I’m assuming it is, but can you confirm that this is the woman you saw in the woods earlier?”

The hand at his neck pushed Stiles closer to the body and forced him to look down at it the creepy echoes grumbling in his ear all the while.

“Shut up Laura, Stiles just look at her for a moment, please,” Lydia said impatiently.

The hand released Stiles but he looked down at the body again anyway, mostly because he wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever heard Lydia say please before. Other than the lack of shoes the corpse what dressed nicely enough, dark wash jeans, a cotton shirt and a leather jacket on over it. Less nice was bloody hole where Stiles could only assume the heart was supposed to be. Moving on Stiles took in the dead woman’s face. It was pale, clearly dead, with a mess of dark brown hair over dark brows, lovely cheek bones and a strong jaw. She looked familiar in a way that tickled at Stiles memory for more reasons than just that she was in fact the woman he had seen minutes ago.

“Yep, that’s her! No doubt, this lady who has clearly been dead at least a couple days according to most detective shows is definitely the lady I saw in the woods just now. So really there is no reason to worry Lydia!” Stiles said stepping back from the corpse and turning to her, “Cause I’m going crazy too!”

Lydia nodded in unconcerned acknowledgment that he had spoken, a delicate little crease between her brows as she thought something over. She tapped her lips considerately with her pointer finger before looking over to the woods to Stiles left where he presumed her invisible friend was.

“So you saw her before but you can’t see her now?” Lydia asked, still with her cute little thinking face on. Stiles considered that he might not want to think of her as cute in light of the dead body and her possible invisible demon friend, but old habits are a bitch to break.

“Nope!” Stiles said cheerily, “Just you and me, just like I’ve always dreamed! Except, you know, the corpse, but hey I’ll take what I can get I guess!”

Lydia completely ignored his attempt at banter and tapped at her lip, looking back and forth between him and the empty space in the wood.

“I want to try something...” Lydia started, stepping towards Stiles and grabbing up his hand. Any other time Stiles would have been ecstatic at this turn of events but at the moment Lydia’s potential murder hands weren’t doing it for him.

“Lydia this is very forward of-”

Lydia cut him off with a glare and nodded her head off to his left, “See anything now?”

Stiles looked over to where Lydia had gestured and was greeted by the same face he had just looked at on the dead woman, this time with a tongue sticking out at him.

Stiles knowing he had very little dignity left to lose in this situation still regretted it when he jumped back and gave off a high pitched yelp as he stumbled away from the woman’s sudden appearance. His flailing broke his connection with Lydia’s hand and once again the dark haired woman disappeared from his view. 

“What’s going on?” Stiles exclaimed more confused than the time he’d gotten a boner during math class in sixth grade.

Lydia sighed, “This,” she said as she grabbed at his hand again, “is Laura Hale,” she gestured to the dark haired woman who appeared again. “And that,” Lydia turned Stiles around to the bush where the body’s feet were peeking out from under, “is her dead body,” she finished simply.

Stiles could feel his hand getting sweaty and clammy from nerves, but Lydia didn’t seem to mind as she maintained a firm grasp on him. Stiles turned back around to look again at the more alive looking Laura.

“Hey, I’m Laura,” she said offering her hand.

Stiles reached out with his right hand, the one not still wrapped around Lydia’s, and shook the offered appendage, feeling a cold shock as she firmly clasped his hand, “Stiles,” he rasped out as the two separated.

Lydia regarded the exchange with curiosity, “Now this is interesting. Stiles grab my shoulder a second,” Stiles transferred his hand to the soft slope of Lydia shoulder as Lydia reached out to shake Laura’s hand next. Stiles watched in shock as their hands passed straight through each other and felt it as a shiver passed through Lydia.

Pursing her lips Lydia next commanded, “Okay Stiles let go of me and Laura grab his arm.” Stiles blindly obeyed and jumped slightly as Laura disappeared again. There was the disgruntled echoey voice that Stiles figured was Laura speaking when he couldn’t see her, but no invisible hand grabbed him.

“Just humor me a second,” Lydia said testily and suddenly fingers wrapped again around Stile’s upper arm causing him to startle. Lydia reached out her hand and it seemed to fit around what Stiles could only assume was Laura’s other invisible hand. Lydia dropped her hand again and the grip on Stile’s arm released.

“Curious,” Lydia muttered seemingly to herself, glancing at Stiles for a moment before crossing her arms and tapping her fingers along the outside of one of them.

“Not that I don’t also find whatever just happened endlessly fascinating, but could you possibly enlighten me on more of the overall details of this situation,” Stiles inquired spreading his arms to encompass Lydia, where he’d last seen Laura, and the bushes containing Laura’s body.

Lydia sighed and grabbed Stiles hand again, “Laura you explain. This is all your fault anyway.”

 

...

 

Economics with Coach Finstock was probably Erica’s least favorite class. First Finstock makes them all, even the non-athletes, address him as ‘Coach’ Finstock. Second Erica is not entirely sure the man has taken an economics course in his life. And third Stiles Stilinski’s seat in the class wasrightinfrontofher. Which was causing her efforts over the summer to stop crushing on the boy to take many steps backward. It was hard to get over a boy who had proven himself irrevocably obsessed with the illustrious ‘it’ girl of the school when his touchably soft buzzcut was constantly moving around right in front of her. At least Erica assumed it was soft, really she would have to just feel for herself at some point.

Aaand there went her efforts at the first school lunch of the new semester to remind herself not to think about Stiles. She’d worked at it all lunch too, Isaac sitting across from her in companionable silence and the shy new girl sitting unobtrusively at the other end of their table.

Erica pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her hands and crossed her arms on her desk before sighing and slumping down to rest her head on her crossed arms in dreaded anticipation of the arrival of her undoing.

Rather than those lithe but broad shoulders plopping down in front of her, Erica got Scott McCall, Stile’s best friend, who on a usual afternoon would be sitting next to Stiles, crashing into the seat next to Erica. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that he was turned in his seat in her direction, mouth open like he was about to address her. Erica clenched her fists inside of her sleeves in anticipation of whatever he was going to say.

“Hi! Erica right?” Scott said leaning across the aisle so he was more in her line of sight.

Erica sat up slowly, not wanting to give him the impression she was eager for attention or anything, and hummed in agreement as she turned to face him lazily, one elbow on her desk supporting her head.

Scott was not put off by her apparent disinterest though, “I’m Scott! I saw you were sitting next to the new girl, Allison <3, at lunch! Did she seem okay? Do you think she would be okay with another friend? Is she too cool for friends?!” Scott was speaking in a rush, his cheeks getting redder as he rambled.

Erica sat up more and glanced sideways at the front of the class. Good news, Stiles wasn’t there yet to break down her resolutions, and in a surprising turn of events, bad news, Finstock wasn’t there yet to bring order back to the excitable boy who was asking Erica about a girl she’d barely even noticed.

“You know she didn’t actually sit _next_ to me, right?” Erica drawled, looking lazily at Scott and raising a brow.

“Ahh...” Scott’s mouth remained open as he searched for what to say next.

Fortunately Erica wouldn’t ever have to hear what he came up with since Finstock took that moment to bang through the door and yell some gibberish at the class. 

Erica frowned at the still empty seat in front of her and at the usually empty seat next to her where Scott was still seated. Seemed Stiles was skipping today and naturally his friend knew about it.

Sighing in relief at her respite from temptation, Erica pulled out her notebook and began doodling in it. Scratching in dark shading for a cartoonish representation of Finstock Erica refused to admit that she was even a little bit morose about Stiles absence.

 

...

“It is not my fault!” Laura turned to Stiles and prefaced her story by repeating to him in a quieter voice, “Its not my fault.”

So began the epic story of Laura Hale, actual werewolf ghost.

Laura had come to Beacon Hills to investigate some strange animal killings. She said the animals were killed and uneaten, left to rot in open fields with a special mark carved into their sides. The mark of the Hales. 

As Laura explained how her family used to live in Beacon Hills before hunters killed nearly everyone Stiles remembered why he’d vaguely recognized her earlier. His dad had been involved in the investigation of the fire and Laura and her brother, along with their comatose uncle, had been the only surviving Hales. The county had decided that the fire wasn’t arson, but Stiles distinctly remembered his father, then a deputy, had been disappointed with the result. It didn’t help that soon after they’d set their uncle up in a long term care hospital the two Hale sibling had disappeared.

Though that apparently was due to the fact that they and their family were frigging WEREWOLVES!! Laura showed Stiles her claws and teeth as Lydia snorted like the supernatural world was already old hat to her. Stiles was informed that the Hale pack had lived in Beacon Hills for generations in a tenuous peace with the more transient ‘hunters’ who usually killed their kind. The peace hadn’t lasted though, since someone with knowledge of how to trap and kill werewolves, in all likelihood a ‘hunter asshole,’ had surrounded their home with some type of ash and set the house on fire with men, women and children inside.

Laura explained that although she and her brother were out she had known immediately that her mother, Talia Hale, the former alpha, had died because the power of the alpha had transferred to Laura upon Talia’s death. Then Laura and her brother had hit the road as fast as possible to avoid the hunter catching up with them to finish off the job. Laura figured her brother, Derek, was still sulking about NYC, were she’d last left him.

At this point in the story Stiles was settled on the ground with his back against a big tree, still a bit closer to the body than he was comfortable with and Lydia curled against his side in a distracting manner. Laura was laid out on her back in the leaf litter in front of him, both of them subtly looking away from each other when a few tears had leaked from the corner of Laura’s eye.

All this lead up resulted in what had happened over the past weekend, when Stiles had been ignorantly bored at home binging wiki and playing video games.

Laura had arrived in town and went out to search a few of the locations where the animals had been, hoping she’d be able to sniff something out that the police couldn’t. Not know why the animal carcasses would be left with a triskelion, the symbol of the Hale family, Laura had hoped it might have something to do with the hunter that had killed her family so that she could figure out how they’d done it and gotten away with it. Stiles learned that in addition to superhuman strength, werewolves had heightened senses including the ability to see in the dark. Moving on from Stiles interjection of ‘Cool!’ along with several more questions about werewolves in general, Laura explained how she decided to search the woods of the preserve around the burnt up Hale house for clues. Smelling blood she’d followed the scent to a torn apart rabbit. Crouching down to investigate Laura had begun to feel woozy. On reflection Laura postulated that there had probably been some sort of wolfsbane in the bunny that had weakened her. Something had struck her from behind causing her to black out for a moment. When she opened her eyes she’d looked up at a woman, pale in the moonlight, standing over her with a crowbar. Laura had lost track of the world for a moment and when she opened her eyes again her supposedly comatose uncle had been crouched over her, claws extended. 

After he’d killed her Peter, Laura’s uncle, had become an Alpha. Before she could see much else Lydia had rudely interrupted Laura’s new ghostly life with her annoying voice.

“Lydia doesn’t have an annoying voice!” Stiles defended instantly and a little too vigorously since Lydia stirred where she’d been dosing against him.

“Quite an annoying scream though, eh Lydia?” Laura sat up and poked at the other woman, her finger passing straight through her thigh, though the action caused Lydia to bristle against Stile’s side anyway.

“Again I only know what you have told me,” Lydia grumbled sleepily, rubbing at one eye, “so you’re not getting me to tell him about banshees either.”

Stiles frowned in confusion, “Banshees?”

“Banshee, singular that I know of,” Laura pointed at Lydia where she was slouching against Stiles side again, her warmth reaching though both of their layers of clothes to invade Stile’s skin, “her.”

“So she can see ghosts and talk to them and stuff?” Stiles asked looking down at the top of Lydia’s strawberry blonde head. He really wanted to pet it.

“All I know is that banshee screams are supposed to predict death according to Irish mythology, but yeah, I guess they can see ghosts and stuff too,” Laura shrugged and turned to look behind her at the bushes where her bodies feet were sticking out from under, “I just gang-pressed her into moving my body for me so the hunters that have been sniffing around the area didn’t find it.”

“There are hunters in the area?!” Stiles exclaimed leaning forward sharply and looking around the mid-afternoon sun lit woods.

“Yeah, guess they were interested in the dead animals too,” Laura murmured, “I avoided them though, so they wouldn’t know a Hale was back in town unless they found that,” she finished, tilting her head back at the corpse.

“Where are we taking it?” Stiles asked.

“We?”

Stiles blushed and licked his lips, “Well I figured you could use a little more help, since you’ve apparently worn Lydia down,” he glanced down at where her head was resting delicately on his shoulder and a tiny spot of drool was pooling, “and I’m happy to help!”

“Eager to be holding hands with a corpse,” Laura grinned wickedly.

Stiles sputtered, realizing what he’d just agreed to, “Ehh, um, I-I..”

Laura flopped onto her back and laughed.

“You could do it you know,” a tiny sleepy voice muttered from beside Stiles.

Stiles looked down at Lydia who was stirring again at the loud laughter, “What?”

“Laura. She can lift her own damn corpse now,” Lydia turned to glance at Laura who was sitting up again.

Laura blinked several times before enlightenment lit up her face, “Oh right! Stiles when you touch me I can touch stuff, like a poltergeist or something. This will be much faster now!”

Stiles knew that a poltergeist was a ghost who could move physical objects from a regrettable horror movie that he’d seen at a young age and Peeves from the Harry Potter books.

“But why?” Stiles asked.

Laura snorted, “Humans are super slow and weak, I’ll be able to carry my body not just drag it around.”

Lydia inhaled sharply next to Stiles, but before she could say anything about all the hard work he was sure she’d put in over the weekend he elaborated on his question, “No, why does me touching you do that?”

The corners of Laura mouth pulled sideways into a thin line as her eyes widened, “No idea!”

Stiles looked down at Lydia who was fully roused now. She rolled her eyes at his imploringly raised brows, “Even less of an idea why, Stiles.”

“Well, since we can neither confirm nor deny that other people have the same effect on your ghostly presence Laura, for now I’ve decided to call myself a special snowflake and move on with my day,” Stiles concluded with a grin.

Standing, Stiles lost sight of Laura momentarily but she reappeared when he reached his hand down to help Lydia off the ground and she kept her hand tucked into his.

“Take my hand too,” Laura said offering her left hand to Stiles as all three of them headed over to the body.

This was how Stiles ended up walking towards the burnt up Hale house with his long time crush who happened to be a banshee on one hand and a werewolf ghost holding her own body  on the other when a decidedly growly voice behind them ground out, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

**Author's Note:**

> Got this first part done and if people like it I'll write more so let me know what you think. Again this is my first fanfic and writing takes me a while so I'd like to know if ppl are interested before I commit more time to it *fingerguns away*


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